


once upon a time, they were fierce and formidable

by tangentiallly



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, F/M, Gen, Pre-Canon, josephine-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 11:24:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20674595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangentiallly/pseuds/tangentiallly
Summary: Josephine thinks about Beatrice, and how brave and adventurous they had once been.





	once upon a time, they were fierce and formidable

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: I don't own ASOUE

Sometimes Josephine thought about Beatrice. Beatrice, who was brave and adventurous, fierce and formidable. Beatrice, always ready to wrestle an eagle or dive down the balcony of the headquarters wearing dragonfly wings.

Josephine remembered herself to be like that too, once upon a time. Those memories felt distant, like another lifetime. Had they really agreed to go on Hector’s still experimental stage floating device that day while everyone else made excuses of having some other event to attend to? Had they really almost crashed into the land but managed to steer the device and get themselves to fall into the ocean just in time? Had they really got up at one in the morning and just randomly decided to explore the city tunnels that weren’t even documented on the maps, and had the flashlight they’d brought with them suddenly stopped functioning while they were trying to climb up an elevator shaft?

She remembered those memories like she was watching watching a film, but it was as if she was underwater and the film was being played on a screen that she couldn’t see clearly because they were both underwater. She remembered those things they had done, but she couldn’t remember how it felt, just what had happened. She couldn’t remember feeling brave, feeling fierce and formidable and adventurous and reckless, feeling energetic and ready to take on the world. 

Seriously, how it did feel like, to be brave, to be fearless?

Josephine couldn’t remember that. Not anymore.

She remembered those events like the way she remembered the contents of a book, she remembered what happened as if it’s someone else’s experience and she was just observing second hand.

In a way, it _was _someone else’s experience. It was the experience of another version of herself who had died a long time ago.

Josephine thought about Beatrice, and wondered if Beatrice was still as adventurous and brave as the old days. It was hard to imagine Beatrice not being like that - but then again, perhaps Beatrice thought the same of Josephine too, and look what she’d become now? The ghost of her former self scared of everything?

Still, when Josephine tried to picture Beatrice not being fierce and formidable - she just couldn’t see it. It was _Beatrice_, after all. _Beatrice Baudelaire_. Had Beatrice ever been scared? It was hard to imagine. But then Josephine remembered what Snicket’s sister once said. “If you’re not scared, it’s not bravery.” Perhaps Beatrice had been scared too, but she had, at the same time, been brave.

Josephine wondered, if Beatrice was still brave now.

She must be, Josephine thought. She was a mother of two these days, Josephine had heard. She and Bertrand and a little girl and a little boy. They had to be brave, to make the decision of having kids. Josephine thought about herself, and how she and Ike were too afraid to have children. She thought about all the horrible things she was afraid would happen to her and Ike and their children, even though they had been trying to stay away from VFD after the death of Ike’s brother. (She still remembered Ike’s devastation when he had received the news. Sometimes she felt he was never his old self afterwards, just like she wasn’t. Sometimes she felt a part of them had both died in that fire with Gregor.)

Beatrice had to be brave, Josephine thought. She had to be brave to protect her children from all evils of the world, all the scariness world, all the dangers ranging from fires to traitorous marine biologist research assistants. (Josephine, like everyone else, had read Jacques Snicket’s report of the Anwhistle Aquatics Fire in the Daily Punctilio, she had read and read and_ read_ and searched and searched and _searched_ for any grammar mistakes that might’ve indicated there had been a secret message saying that Gregor was actually alive, but there hadn’t been. It had been very grammatically correct, tragically so. It had been a very grammatically correct report written by an honourable, honest volunteer. Tragically so.)

Beatrice had to be so brave. She and Bertrand, they both had to be, Josephine thought. They had to be fierce and formidable to fight off all the dangers and all the enemies they’d accumulated over the years that might want to hurt them and their children. They had to be brave to protect the children.

Then again, when Josephine thought back on Beatrice from their younger days and all their adventures, when she remembered how many things Beatrice had done, she would also think, “if anyone’s brave enough, fierce and formidable enough to protect their children, it’s Beatrice.” Sometimes Josephine would think about how, in another world, a better world, a more peaceful world without the schism, she and Ike would be able to have children too. In a world where they were not so afraid, they would be able to raise their own kids and watch them grow up, too. Sometimes, just sometimes, she would daydream about what that would be like. Sometimes, just sometimes, she would admit to herself that she actually really wanted children too.

But she was afraid. They both were, she and Ike. And they’d agreed that, in this world, with all the dangers and the schism going on, it was not safe to do so. They would have to worry about so many things, like what if they had died a sudden death - perhaps by fire - what would happen to the children? What if they had children, and the children got involved in VFD’s schism somehow? What if they had children, and one of them died an early death because of their research topic, and the others were left eternally missing their sibling?

She and Ike, they didn’t feel like they could take the risk. They were afraid. Too afraid.

Josephine thought about how Kit Snicket once said, “if you’re not scared, it’s not bravery.” But that didn’t mean if you’re scared then it would also be bravery. Sometimes you’re just scared and that was all. Sometimes being scared was just being scared, nothing else, Josephine thought. And sometimes, when you’re scared long enough, you began to forget how it felt to not be scared.

Once upon a time, she’d been brave enough.

She couldn’t remember what that felt like.

**Author's Note:**

> [come say hi on tumblr](https://beatricebidelaire.tumblr.com)


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